On a bright morning last week, Mayor Gary McCarthy appeared with bank and real estate executives inside the City Hall rotunda to announce the expansion of a program aimed at boosting home ownership in the city.

At the same time and just two miles away, Roger Hull was in front of Schenectady High School to unveil a proposal to use city schools as weekend neighborhood centers and to encourage older students to mentor younger ones.

The two men are renewing their rivalry for the mayor's office. McCarthy narrowly defeated Hull in 2011.

"I'm the underdog, the non-politician who is a problem-solver against a career politician," Hull said.

McCarthy accused Hull, the erstwhile Union College president and founder of the Alliance Party, of living in the past.

"It's a race of the future versus the past. He's talking about what happened 20 years ago, and I'm looking at what's happening today," McCarthy said.

As they did four years ago, McCarthy, a 59-year-old Democrat, and Hull, a 73-year-old independent running on the Republican line, are clashing over major issues like crime and city finances. But they're also locking horns over efforts to change Schenectady.

McCarthy touts the millions of dollars that have been spent renovating downtown, an effort that's lured businesses and restaurants into a hub that's thrived around a revitalized and expanded Proctors theater.

Hull said the focus of the mayor's office should be on where the residents of this city of 66,135 lay their heads at night. "The neighborhoods are a disgrace, and I want to focus on them," Hull said. "To win the election, I have to win the neighborhoods. I don't have to win Main Street."

Improving the neighborhoods in a 11-square-mile city takes time but is happening, McCarthy said. "You're not going to see the results that you see downtown that took over a decade in four years, but you do see the incremental improvement and will see the long-term gain given an equal amount of time that we've had the opportunity to work downtown," he said.

The next mayor will preside over the opening — expected in 2017 — of a $330 million casino in the city, a potential watershed event that is expected to fill city coffers with revenue but also tax public safety and services.

The Rivers Casino & Resort at Mohawk Harbor is the centerpiece of a $480 million project by the Galesi Group that is expected to add the casino, hotel and homes to one-time industrial land on Erie Boulevard which is less than a mile from downtown.

McCarthy touts the casino as the next step in city revitalization, but Hull questions whether casino revenue earmarked for the city will lead to the double-digit property-tax reductions McCarthy foresees. "It's complementing the arts and entertainment we're building around Proctors and the renaissance we're seeing downtown," McCarthy said.

Hull is less enthusiastic about a gambling hall but promised any monies, either from the casino itself or from real estate taxes, would provide tax relief for homeowners.

"I'm not a fan of the casino but would work to make it work," added Hull. "It's going to be casino and downtown on his end, and it's going to be my argument for neighborhoods on mine."

Hull credited McCarthy for tearing down blighted properties in the city, but said he worries there are no plans for the land once the buildings are gone.

McCarthy disagrees with that assessment.

"We're doing the code enforcement, we're doing the demolition of the worst of the worst properties, we're seeing people look at Schenectady differently where I've marketed it through the HOMES programs," McCarthy said. "It's not going to change overnight, but you're seeing more activity in the neighborhoods, and it's a balanced approach that's going to produce long-term results."

He asserted that his party deserves the credit for transforming the city's downtown. He said the pace of projects took off after Democrats took control of the Schenectady County Legislature and hired Ray Gillen as the chairman of the Metroplex Development Authority, the agency that uses a portion of the county's sales tax revenue on building projects.

McCarthy calls it a renaissance.

"They were able to actually implement things and make things happen," he added. "Before that, it was a lot of talk and conceptual things, but no actual results."

He described himself as having "played a role" because of his time on the Metroplex board, the City Council and the city Industrial Development Agency, but called it a "team effort."

Hull said he and Neil Golub helped plant the seed for the redevelopment downtown with their Schenectady 2000 initiative, a revitalization effort that led to the creation of Metroplex.

Hull said the city needs to adopt a zero-tolerance approach on crime: that is, holding people responsible for tagging buildings with graffiti and for loitering.

"Zero tolerance is they don't get to stand on the street corner dealing drugs," he said. He also disagrees with McCarthy's use of code enforcement to punish homeowners for relatively minor violations, including peeling paint or not having a railing on steps.

McCarthy said they already take a zero-tolerance position on crime, adding that the perception of Schenectady as a violent place is sometimes hard to overcome.

"If we had a cop on every corner that would be the best solution, but you don't have the resources to do that so we're doing the policing," said McCarthy, who added the city is supplementing police work with stricter enforcement of city codes to combat crime.

Still, McCarthy said crime is down in the city and that investigators are solving more serious cases despite the police department not being at full strength because of the year or more it takes for a recruit to move from the academy to patrolling the streets.

Hull doesn't see improvements, saying crime is even a problem in his neighborhood, the GE Realty Plot, a usually placid section of the city.

"There is a crime issue here. The alarms around go off pretty regularly here," he said. He cited examples of burglaries and car thefts in the vicinity of his home.

"It's zero tolerance; no broken windows. It is hiring police as you can financially afford to hire them. It is finding best practices that exist elsewhere rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, and you put it all together and try to put together something that's dramatically different, but any way you slice it, we have a crime problem in this city."

The way Hull sees it, rising taxes, plunging home values, crime and problem schools are all intertwined.

"If people do not feel that they are not going to be safe, if people do not believe that their kids are going to get a good education, then it's not possible for property values to go up. And if property values don't go up, then taxes can't go down, so things are all tied together," he added.

He complained that the value of his home is down 25 percent, while the average in the city is about 20 percent.

Hull said the city is headed for a financial cliff. "When you borrow from your reserves, when you have falling values, when you have rising taxes, to me that's a cliff," he explained, citing the city's highest-in-the-region property taxes, sagging property values and over-assessed homes.

McCarthy contends the last reassessment in Schenectady occurred around the time the real estate market peaked before it soured. He maintains that the current tax levy – the amount to be raised by taxes — is lower now than when he took office four years ago.

And state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, who came to the city to endorse McCarthy, issued a report last week showing that Schenectady had received the best possible score in fiscal stress monitoring by the state.

"I've stabilized that (tax levy), and we're looking to continue that next year, and we're hoping to see some benefits from the casino and other developments that are coming online that will produce savings for the average taxpayer." McCarthy said. "It's hard for people to understand that the assessment process is designed to make sure you are paying your fair share of the tax bill."

McCarthy said that if he wins he wants to make city government more interactive, including implementing a program to allow residents to know the whereabouts of garbage and snow trucks "so people see the results of what they are paying for."

A reflective McCarthy said some of his toughest decisions as mayor have involved personnel matters.

Though he has been on the political scene for decades, he considers it an avocation and doesn't consider himself a career politician. "It's the opportunity to serve people and the opportunity to get things done," he said.

Outside the political arena, both men enjoy fishing.

McCarthy, who worked as an investigator for the district attorney's office for three decades, is a New York Yankees fan.

Hull, a lawyer, runs a national foundation for at-risk kids, is a hiker, does tae kwon do and considers, George Washington and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius heroes.

Marva Isaacs, president of the Hamilton Hill Neighborhood Association, applauded McCarthy for his efforts to remove eyesore properties and curb crime.

"He doesn't have the gun in his hands, but at least he's doing something and trying his best, I believe, to try and stop it," she said. "He's a Democrat, he does things in the community, and he's making Schenectady a better place."

Golub, executive chairman of the board of Price Chopper parent company The Golub Corp. said Hull, a longtime friend, would bring a fresh perspective. "Roger brings a different point of view on issues where Schenectady has had a lot of problems," Golub said. "I'm supporting Roger because he and I have been friends."